Rain

 By 6 pm the clouds which had thinned at midday had grown heavy again, bringing on an early dusk, and the air had become close and still and breathlessly humid. The first raindrops came down at 6:30, in random, quarter-sized splotches at first, striking the bricks of the cafe patio like random paintballs and then thinning and gathering together in a general downpour which quickly painted the street a slate gray. The long yellow grass of the canopy above the table sheltered my coffee and my book and my ashtray well enough, but the rain dripped steadily on my left shoulder just outside of the cover. Tourists hurried by at the side of the street, most having come out unarmed by umbrellas. They walk with shoulders hunched, as if ducking will help. They shade their eyes with a hand, as if saluting, or peering Apache-like at the far horizon. A petite, rather elegant blond woman has come out to the edge of the cafe, careful to remain beneath the roof, to wait for the rain to stop, and I wait as well, lighting another cigarette, noting that three sips at most wait in my coffee cup. On the street traffic slows, horns blare. A tourist bus is trying to get through the narrow lanes of the road that are left between the parked cars. The elegant woman waits still, focused on nothing, looking at nothing, completely without expression. Next door at the deserted Curry In Bali, Indian Restaurant and Experience! establishment, the sound system suddenly booms through the pattering of the rain, entertaining all with the old Michael W. Smith hit, I Will Be Here For You (because what else could go better with curry, right?). From the old Hardy's store just up the street, which has a new name that no one seems to know, recorded gamelan percussion contends with Michael W. Smith and the scent of curry. At last the petite elegant, statue-like blond gives up and returns to her uncleared table, and I surrender as well, dash across the street to my bike, retrieve my cumbersome hated raincoat from the storage compartment beneath the seat cover, and take to the road amid the hissing of tires kicking up dusty showers of water from the asphalt, a long wet drive home before me accented by sudden fountains from lake-line puddles at the side of the highway and by run-ins with fantastically incautious motorists, squinting through my own rain-speckled glasses, palms wet and slippery on the handlebars and on the handle of the accelerator, wondering whether I will make it home alive. Ah the incomparably exotic adventure of the tropics!